Perhaps you remember in 2019 when three Art Basel afficionados purchased a banana duct-taped to a wall for $120,000? Visual and conceptual artist Joe Morford does. And in 2020, he sued duct-taped banana creator and Italian artist, Maurizio Cattelan, for copyright infringement. Morford argued he had already taped a banana to a wall in his piece Banana and Orange 18 years before Cattelan displayed his banana-on-a-wall piece, Comedian, at Art Basel. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, likely finding the whole dispute bananas, issued an order on cross-motions for summary judgment holding that Cattelan’s fruit art did not infringe Morford’s.
